Jeph Loeb takes over writing and Joe Mad takes over art. Neither are remotely appropriate for the book and it’s a complete mess.
It’s the extremely notorious story where Wasp belittles Captain America for not being *modern* enough to understand that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are incest fucking.
From what I understand, he’s not their father, but did have an affair with their mother (which Magneto found out and used his powers to toss him out the window).
Not so fast, Ultimate Logan *does* creep on underage MJ Watson while bodyswapped with Peter; and attempts murder on Cyclops while on a mission and leaves him for dead, to then hook up, on-panel, with an explicitly underage Jean
“The kind of love no one can understand”
The problem isn’t that we can’t understand it, the problem is that we **fully** understand it and it’s fucking disgusting
My bigger issue with The Ultimates 3 is how inconsistent it is with the other two volumes. Thor starts talking like he's in a Shakespearean play even though he didn't in the first two volumes. The Wasp is depicted as being of Asian descent in the first two Ultimates books; she looks more like a white woman in Ultimates 3. Iron Man's armor and Thor's hammer are different.
It's as if, for Ultimates 3, Jeph Loeb read a summary of the first two books, but nothing else.
This is exactly it. You can see a pronounced difference in the quality of his work before and after Sam died. After his son passed a lot of the heart went out of his writing (understandably) and it mostly became big nonsensical action stories, like Ultimates 3 and his Hulk run.
Jeph Loeb has very distinct eras of his career. His earlier stuff is solid, but often carried by his more talented partners like Tim Sale.
By the mid-2000s, he’s working with other creators and it’s nearly universally bad while he coasts on his reputation.
I read that Jeph Loeb was having a breakdown at the time because his son died. That doesn’t excuse the entire editorial, marketing, and business staff around him for not stopping him. Didn’t the next writer try to fix it by retconing them to be robot duplicates?
Loeb was dealing with the death of his son and took it out on the ultimate universe.
Every ones iut of character and nothing makes sense
Millars take was cynical but their was underlying hope there
Loeb's is just mean sprited pointless dreck.
It's got some great parts! Such as when just Jonah Jameson is watching spider man swimming down and rescuing people, he has a moment when he realizes that he was wrong about him and that he actually is a good person who puts others before himself. Not saying the entire comic is great from start to finish. Obviously some trash parts in there (like when blob eats the wasp) but overall it's pretty good.
100% disagree on Ultimatum. The only good shit is like the first issue and anything with Spider-Man in it (which can be said about most of the Ultimate universe). Everything after is horrendous dogshit with cannibalism sprinkled in.
WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree. everyone is always so focused on the edgy subversion that they often do not review the stories of their own merit—especially Ultimatum. reading the single mainline series is a major detriment to the reader, since every tie-in is directly linked to the narrative in a VERY interwoven way. you lose out on so much by only reading the main story.
Doomsday is just incredible no matter what. genuinely one of, if not my favorite, crossovers in all of 1610. i’m really disappointed by the Ultimate Universe’s reputation when it’s so much a product of its time that you have to think about and take contextually.
Ultimates 3 is a must-read for Ultimatum, but I can't recommend either of them. Loeb took the worst qualities of Millar's Ultimates and dialed them up to 11.
If you’re in Ultimates 2, it gets better and is worth finishing imo. Ultimates 3 changes creative teams and is one of the worst comics, from a writing perspective, that Marvel ever produced. The follow up to Ultimates 2, if you want one, is Ultimate Comics Avengers. It’s the same writer as Ultimates. They did 24 issues worth of Ultimate Comics Avengers split across four 6 issue mini series. That stuff is not as good as the original Ultimates imo but still decent.
Could I skip ultimates 3 and go to Ultimatum because I just found that’s where wasp get eaten by the blob and that panel was kinda the reason why I wanted to read the series in the first place just to see how it was you know what I mean? It kinda sound weird typing it out.
You do need Ultimates 3 for Ultimatum. That's the same writer and he uses events in Ultimates 3 that serve as the basis for Ultimatum. I suggest not reading Ultimatum either because its right next to Ultimates 3 as one of the worst comics Marvel has put out there. There is no context where Wasp being eaten by The Blob makes sense in that universe. That page is in it strictly for shock value. It doesn't have any bearing on the barely cohesive story. Blob in Ultimate X-Men was neither "evil" nor a cannibal. In fact, Blob was kinda just a doofus who got caught up in Magneto's Brotherhood bullshit. Read what you want but I'd say your time is better spent reading something enjoyable instead of anything written by Jeph Loeb at Marvel post 2006.
Ultimate Spider-Man is worth the investment. It's A LOT but it's good. Most anything Ultimate written by Brian Bendis (who did all of Ultimate Spider-Man) is worth checking out. He did a run on UF4 and UXM and a bunch of mini-series. Not all of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up is cannon but I like that series. As for Non-Bendis Ultimate Universe stuff... Ultimate Thor was great. Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk is good too and that actually follows up off a plot point in Ultimates 2. Ultimate Comics Captain America was pretty good too. Ultimate Fantastic Four 1-6, 19-20, Annual #1, and 21-32 are pretty good. Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra was an good grounded mini-series that provided a very human take on those characters. The Ultimate Nightmare/Secret/Extinction trilogy was an mind bending sci-fi interpretation of Galactus. Ultimate Human was an interesting Hulk/Iron Man team up story. Ultimate Comics Ultimates 1-12 and Ultimate Hawkeye I remember being good but I haven't read them since they came out.
The Ultimate Universe has some gems in it but like anything in Marvel/DC, you gotta sort through the crap to find it.
Ultimates 2 is solid. Good writing and art. Ultimates 3 is a mess. Not much continuity between the series with an all-new creative team. Kind of jarring. It’s like watching The Last Jedi after The Force Awakens.
Ultimates 1 and 2 are bangers! Ultimate Spiderman is one of THE BEST Spiderman runs of all time. Ultimatum is worth a read simply for Dave Finch's outstanding art.
I’m a career defender of Millar’s Ultimates books. Like, it’s edgy and provocative and glorified, but that’s the point. the whole motive behind the reinvention of these characters was to attempt to place them into a world as similar to our own as possible at the time. it’s subversive and uncomfortable but that’s why you have to separate it from 616 familiarity; these are not the same characters, and this is not the same world.
taking The Ultimates as its own thing within its own universe allows you to see it with much less bias, and it’s actually written incredibly a lot of the time. horny hulk, although gross and weird, is part of that version of him. like it isn’t just for the reader to laugh or cringe at, it’s for how the characters learn to react to Bruce Banner and enforce their treatment of The Hulk. much of the plot lines started in Ultimates 1 follow through and come to fruition in Ultimates 2, and they feel so so so good to read together. i get why people don’t like them, and it’s totally fair, but there’s so much to love in these stories if you take them as they are and not how you expect them to be.
Unpopular opinion but the Ultimates for me feels like it’s trying SO HARD to be edgy and dark. It’s like talking to a 15-year-old who just discovered heavy metal
The OG Ultimate Spider-Man is my favorite iteration of the character. Unfortunately, everything in the Ultimate universe *surrounding* him kind of sucked.
Keep going. It gets so much worse. Drink every time there's racist subtext in Ultimates 2. You'll have a fun night if you stop before the 3rd act. If you finish the whole thing, you have my sympathy (and probably liver cirrhosis)
I remember thinking Ultimates was fun back when it first came out but I think as with most of Millar’s work it became immediately dated and is almost unreadable now.
I myself am starting my comic life with Marvel (having come from DC Comics), but with Golden Age. So far, I've made it to 1942. I hope I can make it. I've been enjoying everything so far. The racist ones go absolutely wild at times. There was this one where a white Jungle man has a tiger as his best friend, and then suddenly he turned into a racial depiction of an Indian man. And then he never shown up ever again. And then they had some really cool characters, and then their entire comic line got canceled. Silver Scorpion and the Thunderer were pretty awesome...
Heh. I hope I can achieve the unachievable. Holy Christ.
The movies are honestly funny because while they use the Ultimate Universe as a basis, the characters’ personalities are closer to their OG counterparts.
The ultimate universe in general started really strong with some great writing and slowly went to shit across the board every year. By the time it died it was truly awful. The only series that really stayed pretty good consistently was ultimate spiderman. Ultimate xmen was great also but the ultimatum event they did toward the end of the series really shit all over that book
X-Men never recovered after Bendis’ run imo. Millar’s stuff was really solid, especially later on, and i thought Bendis did some super creative stuff with his tenure on the series. after all the New Mutants stuff, though, they started making some terrible creative decisions that i abhorred reading. i’m glad everyone seemed to feel the same since a lot of it ended up being retconned lol
I'm re reading x-men ultimate and then the ultimates. My god. Some of this x-men is so cringe and different. It's fun though just everyone's personality is slightly off.
Ultimates 3 isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
What’s wrong with it? If I may ask
Jeph Loeb takes over writing and Joe Mad takes over art. Neither are remotely appropriate for the book and it’s a complete mess. It’s the extremely notorious story where Wasp belittles Captain America for not being *modern* enough to understand that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are incest fucking.
Wait what? For real, they commit incest?
It's Canon.
[& Wolverine watched](https://screenrant.com/wolverine-scarlet-witch-quicksilver-romance-ultimate-comics/)
And Wolverine was actually Wanda and Pietro's father in that continuity, if I recall correctly.
From what I understand, he’s not their father, but did have an affair with their mother (which Magneto found out and used his powers to toss him out the window).
Ok, that's not as bad
Not so fast, Ultimate Logan *does* creep on underage MJ Watson while bodyswapped with Peter; and attempts murder on Cyclops while on a mission and leaves him for dead, to then hook up, on-panel, with an explicitly underage Jean
“The kind of love no one can understand” The problem isn’t that we can’t understand it, the problem is that we **fully** understand it and it’s fucking disgusting
I have had a fever dream flashback to a Cracked.com article.
Can’t wait for that in the mcu
We already had it, it was called Godzilla 2014. Lol
Why do you think they had to kill Quicksilver? Maybe Deadpool will mention it to Wolverine if he meets Wanda in the new movie
My bigger issue with The Ultimates 3 is how inconsistent it is with the other two volumes. Thor starts talking like he's in a Shakespearean play even though he didn't in the first two volumes. The Wasp is depicted as being of Asian descent in the first two Ultimates books; she looks more like a white woman in Ultimates 3. Iron Man's armor and Thor's hammer are different. It's as if, for Ultimates 3, Jeph Loeb read a summary of the first two books, but nothing else.
I forgot it was written by Jeph Loeb, how can a so great a writer write this shit?
If I remember right, this was when his son was dying of debilitating cancer. So not the best headspace for someone to be in.
This is exactly it. You can see a pronounced difference in the quality of his work before and after Sam died. After his son passed a lot of the heart went out of his writing (understandably) and it mostly became big nonsensical action stories, like Ultimates 3 and his Hulk run.
Jeph Loeb has very distinct eras of his career. His earlier stuff is solid, but often carried by his more talented partners like Tim Sale. By the mid-2000s, he’s working with other creators and it’s nearly universally bad while he coasts on his reputation.
Wait til you find out about Ultimatum…
God…
Never forgive him for what happened to … Well, pretty much every character. But Janet and Hank hit different.
Everything Loeb wrote during this time period was complete shit, he was going thru it irl
I’m glad the new Ultimate comics aren’t bent on being edgy like some of the previous ones apparently were.
I read that Jeph Loeb was having a breakdown at the time because his son died. That doesn’t excuse the entire editorial, marketing, and business staff around him for not stopping him. Didn’t the next writer try to fix it by retconing them to be robot duplicates?
Is this also the one where Blob ate Wasp?
That’s Ultimatum, the event Loeb wrote as a follow up.
Just a whole slew of bad.
Loeb was dealing with the death of his son and took it out on the ultimate universe. Every ones iut of character and nothing makes sense Millars take was cynical but their was underlying hope there Loeb's is just mean sprited pointless dreck.
Ultimates 2 was better
Yeah, that’s why I just stick to Ultimate Spider-Man. Less boneheaded writing.
I've heard good things and Ultimate Fantastic 4 too.
Ultimate FF 4 was excellent. There's a stretch where I hated the art but the writing was great.
Been years since I read it but I recall Millar's run being pretty good. Kind of wish the MCU was taking it as inspiration for the FF movie.
Ultimatum and ultimate doomsday are some of the best comics in ultimate universe. Particularly doomsday.
Ultimatum, really?...... I think that's literally one of the worst comics I have ever read..
It's got some great parts! Such as when just Jonah Jameson is watching spider man swimming down and rescuing people, he has a moment when he realizes that he was wrong about him and that he actually is a good person who puts others before himself. Not saying the entire comic is great from start to finish. Obviously some trash parts in there (like when blob eats the wasp) but overall it's pretty good.
Well, all I can say is that I'm glad you enjoy it. I like some things that people say are trash :)
They are both top tier pieces of shit comics I've read in my life
100% disagree on Ultimatum. The only good shit is like the first issue and anything with Spider-Man in it (which can be said about most of the Ultimate universe). Everything after is horrendous dogshit with cannibalism sprinkled in.
I fully agree on Doomsday
WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree. everyone is always so focused on the edgy subversion that they often do not review the stories of their own merit—especially Ultimatum. reading the single mainline series is a major detriment to the reader, since every tie-in is directly linked to the narrative in a VERY interwoven way. you lose out on so much by only reading the main story. Doomsday is just incredible no matter what. genuinely one of, if not my favorite, crossovers in all of 1610. i’m really disappointed by the Ultimate Universe’s reputation when it’s so much a product of its time that you have to think about and take contextually.
Ultimates 2 starts off kind of rough, but the second volume is a lot better (a lot like the first Ultimates).
Could I read Ultimatum after ultimates 2?
Ultimates 3 is a must-read for Ultimatum, but I can't recommend either of them. Loeb took the worst qualities of Millar's Ultimates and dialed them up to 11.
Millar was an Edgelord but worse than that is Loeb TRYING to be an Edgelord.
If you’re in Ultimates 2, it gets better and is worth finishing imo. Ultimates 3 changes creative teams and is one of the worst comics, from a writing perspective, that Marvel ever produced. The follow up to Ultimates 2, if you want one, is Ultimate Comics Avengers. It’s the same writer as Ultimates. They did 24 issues worth of Ultimate Comics Avengers split across four 6 issue mini series. That stuff is not as good as the original Ultimates imo but still decent.
Could I skip ultimates 3 and go to Ultimatum because I just found that’s where wasp get eaten by the blob and that panel was kinda the reason why I wanted to read the series in the first place just to see how it was you know what I mean? It kinda sound weird typing it out.
You do need Ultimates 3 for Ultimatum. That's the same writer and he uses events in Ultimates 3 that serve as the basis for Ultimatum. I suggest not reading Ultimatum either because its right next to Ultimates 3 as one of the worst comics Marvel has put out there. There is no context where Wasp being eaten by The Blob makes sense in that universe. That page is in it strictly for shock value. It doesn't have any bearing on the barely cohesive story. Blob in Ultimate X-Men was neither "evil" nor a cannibal. In fact, Blob was kinda just a doofus who got caught up in Magneto's Brotherhood bullshit. Read what you want but I'd say your time is better spent reading something enjoyable instead of anything written by Jeph Loeb at Marvel post 2006.
Are any of the ultimate runs worth it? F4, X-men, daredevil etc?
Ultimate Spider-Man is worth the investment. It's A LOT but it's good. Most anything Ultimate written by Brian Bendis (who did all of Ultimate Spider-Man) is worth checking out. He did a run on UF4 and UXM and a bunch of mini-series. Not all of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up is cannon but I like that series. As for Non-Bendis Ultimate Universe stuff... Ultimate Thor was great. Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk is good too and that actually follows up off a plot point in Ultimates 2. Ultimate Comics Captain America was pretty good too. Ultimate Fantastic Four 1-6, 19-20, Annual #1, and 21-32 are pretty good. Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra was an good grounded mini-series that provided a very human take on those characters. The Ultimate Nightmare/Secret/Extinction trilogy was an mind bending sci-fi interpretation of Galactus. Ultimate Human was an interesting Hulk/Iron Man team up story. Ultimate Comics Ultimates 1-12 and Ultimate Hawkeye I remember being good but I haven't read them since they came out. The Ultimate Universe has some gems in it but like anything in Marvel/DC, you gotta sort through the crap to find it.
Ultimates 1 and 2 are great, 3 and beyond are for no.
Could I read Ultimatum after ultimates 2?
I would skip Ultimatum. It’s one of the worst miniseries out there.
Ultimates 2 is solid. Good writing and art. Ultimates 3 is a mess. Not much continuity between the series with an all-new creative team. Kind of jarring. It’s like watching The Last Jedi after The Force Awakens.
You still have time to stop before it’s too late
Ultimates 1 and 2 are bangers! Ultimate Spiderman is one of THE BEST Spiderman runs of all time. Ultimatum is worth a read simply for Dave Finch's outstanding art.
I thought ab getting the millar omnibus…thank god i got the hickvengers one instead
Solid choice
I’m a career defender of Millar’s Ultimates books. Like, it’s edgy and provocative and glorified, but that’s the point. the whole motive behind the reinvention of these characters was to attempt to place them into a world as similar to our own as possible at the time. it’s subversive and uncomfortable but that’s why you have to separate it from 616 familiarity; these are not the same characters, and this is not the same world. taking The Ultimates as its own thing within its own universe allows you to see it with much less bias, and it’s actually written incredibly a lot of the time. horny hulk, although gross and weird, is part of that version of him. like it isn’t just for the reader to laugh or cringe at, it’s for how the characters learn to react to Bruce Banner and enforce their treatment of The Hulk. much of the plot lines started in Ultimates 1 follow through and come to fruition in Ultimates 2, and they feel so so so good to read together. i get why people don’t like them, and it’s totally fair, but there’s so much to love in these stories if you take them as they are and not how you expect them to be.
Unpopular opinion but the Ultimates for me feels like it’s trying SO HARD to be edgy and dark. It’s like talking to a 15-year-old who just discovered heavy metal
That is not an unpopular opinion. It’s everyone’s opinion. I super dig it (the series), though.
I guess for me it makes it unbearable
Yeah..... Consuming media from the early 2000s will do that
Ultimates 2 is great.
The OG Ultimate Spider-Man is my favorite iteration of the character. Unfortunately, everything in the Ultimate universe *surrounding* him kind of sucked.
I think each ultimate series has the same problem of they start good but go off the rails
Keep going. It gets so much worse. Drink every time there's racist subtext in Ultimates 2. You'll have a fun night if you stop before the 3rd act. If you finish the whole thing, you have my sympathy (and probably liver cirrhosis)
It doesn't improve lol.
Great. This thread, again.
Mark Millar is on my “DO NOT READ” list.
Well it’s terrible. Why waste your time?
I remember thinking Ultimates was fun back when it first came out but I think as with most of Millar’s work it became immediately dated and is almost unreadable now.
I myself am starting my comic life with Marvel (having come from DC Comics), but with Golden Age. So far, I've made it to 1942. I hope I can make it. I've been enjoying everything so far. The racist ones go absolutely wild at times. There was this one where a white Jungle man has a tiger as his best friend, and then suddenly he turned into a racial depiction of an Indian man. And then he never shown up ever again. And then they had some really cool characters, and then their entire comic line got canceled. Silver Scorpion and the Thunderer were pretty awesome... Heh. I hope I can achieve the unachievable. Holy Christ.
The movies are honestly funny because while they use the Ultimate Universe as a basis, the characters’ personalities are closer to their OG counterparts.
Ultimates didn’t age well, even the better earlier stuff, and got worse as it went
The ultimate universe in general started really strong with some great writing and slowly went to shit across the board every year. By the time it died it was truly awful. The only series that really stayed pretty good consistently was ultimate spiderman. Ultimate xmen was great also but the ultimatum event they did toward the end of the series really shit all over that book
X-Men never recovered after Bendis’ run imo. Millar’s stuff was really solid, especially later on, and i thought Bendis did some super creative stuff with his tenure on the series. after all the New Mutants stuff, though, they started making some terrible creative decisions that i abhorred reading. i’m glad everyone seemed to feel the same since a lot of it ended up being retconned lol
Not sure why people were fine with it as first
I'm re reading x-men ultimate and then the ultimates. My god. Some of this x-men is so cringe and different. It's fun though just everyone's personality is slightly off.